Understanding Interacting Binary Stars Identified in Astronomical Surveys

了解天文观测中发现的相互作用的双星

• 批准号: 1514737
• 负责人: Paula Szkody
• 金额: $ 22.16万
• 依托单位: University of Washington
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-01 至 2021-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1514737&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Understanding; Interacting; Binary; Stars; Identified

This project is aimed at understanding how stars that are formed in binary pairs are distributed throughout our galaxy and how they evolve in time by interacting with each other. The team members will use telescope time available through their university to accomplish follow-up observations of variable objects that are identified in several current ongoing sky surveys. The results will reveal the number and nature of these systems that can be compared to theoretical evolution models to understand their evolution. This study also serves as preparation for the future Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (the NSF funded astronomy project recommended by the United States' 2010 Decadal Survey), by revealing the types of variables that will be found. The intellectual merit of the results include new understanding of how mass transfer between stars affects their evolution, how common these stars are at various locations in the galaxy, how magnetic fields enter into the evolution, and how variable the objects are at different evolution stages. The project has broad impact through building up and working with an international community of scientists that will know how to maximize results from the future Synoptic Telescope, including undergraduate students in STEM fields as well as graduate and postdoctoral students in astronomy.The investigators will use Apache Point Observatory to obtain spectra, radial velocities, and high time-resolution light curves of cataclysmic variables from ongoing sky surveys (Sloan, Catalina, Kepler, and Palomar) in order to further the understanding of the evolution of interacting close binary stars. The results will determine the galactic distribution, test population models, and the purity of the instability strip for accreting white dwarfs, parameterize the population containing magnetic white dwarfs, as well as reveal the number and nature of variables that will be present in the future Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). The new results include number densities out of the galactic plane, physical parameters of the variables at the shortest orbital periods, angular momentum losses, heating and cooling resulting from accretion changes, as well as the numbers containing magnetic white dwarfs. A broader impact of these results is the buildup of an international community of astronomers, including undergraduate STEM students, graduate students and postdocs that will be able to exploit the LSST by identifying and following up close binaries of interest.

这个项目的目的是了解成双星对形成的恒星如何在我们的银河系中分布，以及它们如何通过相互作用在时间上演化。团队成员将利用通过他们的大学获得的望远镜时间来完成对当前正在进行的几次天空测量中确定的可变物体的后续观测。结果将揭示这些系统的数量和性质，可以与理论演化模型进行比较，以了解它们的演化。这项研究还通过揭示将发现的变量类型，为未来的大型天文巡天望远镜(美国国家科学基金会资助的天文学项目，由美国2010年十年十年调查推荐)做准备。这些结果的智力价值包括对恒星之间的质量转移如何影响它们的演化、这些恒星在银河系不同位置的常见程度、磁场如何进入演化以及天体在不同演化阶段的变化有了新的理解。该项目通过建立并与国际科学家社区合作产生广泛的影响，这些科学家将知道如何最大限度地利用未来天气望远镜的结果，包括STEM领域的本科生以及天文学的研究生和博士后。研究人员将使用阿帕奇点天文台从正在进行的天文观测(斯隆、卡塔琳娜、开普勒和帕洛玛)获得灾难性变量的光谱、径向速度和高时间分辨率的光曲线，以进一步了解相互作用的近距离双星的演化。这些结果将决定星系的分布，测试种群模型，以及吸积白矮星的不稳定带的纯度，参数化包含磁白矮星的种群，以及揭示未来大型天气观测望远镜(LSST)中存在的变星的数量和性质。新的结果包括银河系平面外的数密度、最短轨道周期变星的物理参数、角动量损失、吸积变化引起的加热和冷却以及包含磁白矮星的数量。这些结果的一个更广泛的影响是建立了一个国际天文学家社区，包括本科生STEM学生、研究生和博士后，他们将能够通过识别和跟踪感兴趣的近距离双星来利用LSST。